Personality Puzzle Project

The Personality Puzzle Project, as its name implies, is designed to solve several puzzles about personality. It has three major goals: (1) To improve our understanding of what personality is, how it functions, and how personality affects our daily functioning. (2) To improve how we measure personality and functioning. (3) To determine how best to combine information about personality and functioning so we can describe more clearly the difficulties that some people—but not others—have in their daily lives due to their personality.

The project will proceed in three phases over 5 years. Phases 1 and 2 are designed to develop a “solution” to the personality puzzle. Phase 3, in the final year, is designed to test this “solution” in a patient sample, to ensure that clinicians find our descriptions of their patients’ unique personalities useful for helping them to select the best treatment for the personality-related difficulties they experience in their lives. The Project is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

The Personality Puzzle Project is actively recruiting participants. Eligible participants are individuals receiving mental health services who are age 18 or older and able to read, write, and converse in English well enough that they can complete questionnaires and interviews. Exclusion criteria are dementia, delirium, or intellectual disability, and active psychosis, intoxication, or suicidally.

For more information regarding the study, please contact the Project Coordinator, Laura Gumbiner or 574-631-3791.